Fuel cost

“ Thus gas used for firing crockery will not be suitable for use in open hearth steel furnaces, as the impurities in the various fuels may have an injurious effect on the manufactured product. The cost of the fuel, cost of transportation, heat value, purity, and ease of handling are all factors in the selection of a fuel. ”

“ Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel Defined- In this section, the term `fully burdened cost of fuel' means the commodity price for fuel plus the total cost of all personnel and assets required to move and, when necessary, protect the fuel from the point at which the fuel is received from the commercial supplier to the point of use. ”

“ When we consider, however, that the cost should only embrace attendance, fuel, wear and tear, and a little lime and soda for the purifiers, that the consumption of fuel is small, the wear and tear light, and that the raw material—air—is obtained for nothing, it ought to be possible to produce the gas for a third or fourth of this amount in most of our great manufacturing centers, where the price of fuel is but a third of that demanded in London, and where provision could be made for economizing the waste heat, which is entirely lost in the Westminster installation. ”

“ In looking uneasily to the future supply and cost of fuel, it is, however, something to know what may be done even with the application of our present knowledge; and, could we apply it universally to-day, all that is necessary for trade and comfort could probably be as well provided for by one-half the present consumption of fuel; and it behooves those who are beginning to build new mills, new furnaces, new steamboats, or new houses, to act as though the price of coal which obtained two years ago had been the normal and not the abnormal price. ”

“ Crude oil fuel must in the future play an important part in all branches of manufacture requiring high, constant heats, and in which the cost of wood, coal, and other solid fuels, together with the labor cost of handling them, forms a considerable part of the cost of production. Where coal is required to be hauled in carts from the wharves, or from a line of railway to the brick yard, located a mile, more or less, from the places where the coal is received, the cost of handling, haulage, and waste is an important item. ”

“ In some cases the work done in a steam-engine by 2 tons of coal has been performed by 1 ton of oil fuel, but in others the proportions have been as 3 to 2, and these latter can be safely relied on in practice as a minimum. This saving, combined with the savings of labour and transit already explained, will in the near future make the use of liquid fuel compulsory, except in places so near to coal-fields that the cost of coal becomes sufficiently low to counterbalance the savings in weight of fuel consumed and in labour in handling it. ”

“ There is a very wide difference in the cost of unloading, hauling away ashes and cinders, and getting my coal around to the kiln, or boilers, or drier, or wherever I use it, and I get very much better results by being able to put the heat from oil fuel just where I want it."
In order to secure the best results with any fuel it is not only necessary that a cheap fuel should be used, but that it should be always obtainable, and that all of it should be burned and turned to commercial account in the operations of brick manufacture. ”

“ While the fuel most commonly used is coal, straw and wood, crude oil is often used, the fuel being determined principally by the location of the engine, and by its cost on the job. The matter of fuel should be taken into consideration when the engine is purchased as the different grades demand different fire box and boiler construction. When it is possible to obtain crude oil at a reasonable figure, it certainly should be used in preference to all others as liquid fuel is the most compact, most easily controlled, and efficient of any. ”

“ Whether on land or sea, fuel oil is preferred to coal because it requires fewer firemen, and back of that, in the man power required in its mining, preparation, and transportation the advantage on the side of oil is even greater. So, too, the substitute for gasoline in internal-combustion engines, whether alcohol or benzol, means higher cost and larger expenditure of labor in its production. ”

“ The expenditure for lubricating oils, waste, and greases alone amounts to more than $150,000 per annum, while the outlay for fuel represents about $1,200,000, and this is comparatively a small sum, since that road is a coal road, so called, and the cost for fuel, as a matter of course, is reduced to a minimum. ”

“ Fuel gas means a larger investment of capital than does any of the other modes of brick burning, and is, therefore, not within the reach of the entire trade. The cost of appliances for burning brick with crude oil is not very large, and as all grate bars, iron frames, and doors can be dispensed with in the use of crude oil fuel, the cost of an oil-burning equipment is but little in excess of an equipment of grates, etc., for coal-burning kilns. ”

“ One of the great burdens of our Northern life, fire building and replenishing, disappears, house-keeping is simplified, the expense of servants reduced, cleanliness restored. Add to this that in the gas regions the cost of fuel is merely nominal, and in towns distant some thirty or forty miles it is not half that of coal. It is easy to see that this revolution in fuel will make as great a change in social life as in manufacturing, and that all the change may not be agreeable. ”

“ A ship of, say, eight or ten thousand tons, making fourteen knots an hour, could often in fair weather do fifteen knots, but that extra mile an hour would probably cost in coal or oil consumption, $150 or $200 more in the twenty-four hours. Oil makes very little smoke when intelligently "fired." If you want to make a chief-engineer of an oil-burner jump, point out the volume of black smoke coming out of the steamer's smokestacks. He will make for the fire-room and raise Cain. A big volume of smoke shows waste of oil and bad combustion. ”

“ For illuminating purposes it is the cheapest form of artificial light; as a fuel it is supplanting coal, where the latter is dear or its cost of carriage high, as on ocean steamers. Finally, the construction of light and convenient gasoline motors has given it great importance as a source of motive power. Natural gas is closely related to petroleum, but the supply has been so reduced by rapid and reckless use that it has but a limited economic outlook and is of local significance only. ”

“ In certain localities where the cost of fuel is extremely high, transmissions of several hundred miles may prove successful from a commercial as well as an engineering standpoint, but the growth of industry, which indicates the necessity for such a transmission, may go on until, through improved facilities of transport, the cost of fuel may be greatly lowered and the economic conditions entirely changed. ”

“ Most vehicles can use 10 percent ethanol in their automobiles.
What's interesting that Americans don't realize, with a little bit of expenditure, we can convert a — kind of the standard automobile to what's called a flex-fuel automobile. And that flex-fuel vehicle can use ethanol that is — or fuel that is 85 percent ethanol. It's amazing, isn't it? Without much cost, your automobile can be converted to be able to burn fuel with 85 percent ethanol, or a product made from corn grown right here in America. ”

“ Petroleum engines are now gaining favour, as they are equal to gas engines in cleanliness and results, and need as little attention, and they can be used anywhere, as a supply of fuel is so easily attainable. The ordinary and common petroleum of commerce is the fuel used, and the various makers contend that these motors are more economical than gas engines, the cost of fuel varying from 3⁄4d. ”

“ If a large and steady demand were to set up, it would be easy to construct ships of which the hold should be composed of a series of air-tight compartments, in wrought iron, into which the oil might be turned directly by means of mains, like gas or water mains in our cities, and from which it might be pumped on its arrival in the Thames or in the Mersey. The cost of the delivery of this liquid fuel may thus be expected to be, hereafter, less per ton than that of coal. It only needs the first expense, that of sinking the shaft. ”

“ As the semi-Diesel type engine will operate successfully on the lowest grades of crude oils, with an efficiency that compares favorably with the true Diesel type, the operating expenses are very much lower than with the gas or gasoline engine. With the same fuels, the semi-Diesel will show greater net saving than the Diesel with a low load factor, as the fuel saving is not eaten up by the high first cost, and overhead charges of the true Diesel. ”

“ Although there is no immediate prospect of the failure of the coal and oil supplies, exhaustion is surely approaching. And as the supplies of fuel for the production of gas and electricity diminish, the cost of lighting may advance. The total amount of oil available in the known oil-fields of this country at the present time has been estimated by various experts between 5,000,000,000 and 20,000,000,000 barrels, the best estimate being about 7,000,000,000. The annual consumption is now about 400,000,000 barrels. ”

“ If you know the cost of crude gasoline at your point and the cost of coal, you can easily figure the exact economy of a gasoline engine for your use. To the economy of fuel question may be added the labor or cost of pumping or hauling water. ”

“ At works using small amounts of fuel, especially if cost of fuel bears but a small proportion to total cost of the manufactured product, oil will be in the future very largely used. It is clean, as compared with coal, can be easily handled, and when carefully used in small quantities, is safe. There are several methods of burning oil that are well adapted to the use of brick manufacturers and other fuel consumers. ”

“ The peculiar advantage of the gas engine is that it can be started and stopped at a moment's notice, and there is accordingly no waste of fuel whatever, besides which the first cost of the machinery is very moderate compared with that of hydraulic power on a small scale, and the average cost of gas for an eight h.p. ”

“ They must burn corn or any other agricultural product for fuel, whenever the farm price of that product fell below the cost of equivalent coal, wood, gas, or oil—after adding to the price of such fuel, at the railway station or waterside, the cost of hauling the fuel to the farm and the agricultural products from the farm. ”

“ With a rise in the price of fuel, this margin, however, rapidly decreases, and the working of the process will, of course, be much more expensive on a small scale, as will also be the cost of the plant, which under all circumstances is very considerable. ”

“ When this last can be overcome, even with the first named drawback, gas will not be found more expensive than coal. The cost of wood, of sweeping the chimney, and the extra wear and tear occasioned by the soot, smoke, and dust of a coal fire, must be calculated in addition to the fuel itself. ”

“ An analysis in the report of the performance of the Great Western engines, with heavy loads varying from 80 tons to 166 tons, shows in every respect a peculiarly satisfactory result at a small cost of fuel, and warrants the expectation of very great benefit to the Company from the economical transport of goods on the line. ”

“ Horse-power for horse-power the cost of fuel for working Cornish pumping engines has been brought below that of pumping engines in the places where the price of coal per ton was less than one-half. Another coal famine that should raise the price of coal in London to 60s. ”

“ The expense of maintenance is limited to gasoline and oil. Depreciation enters in both cases; and though it may be more rapid with a gasoline engine than a water wheel, that item will not be considered here. The cost of lubricating oil is inconsiderable. It will require, when operated at from one-half load to full load, approximately one pint of gasoline to each horsepower hour. When operated at less than half-load, its efficiency lowers. ”

“ What would you do right now to reduce the price of gasoline?
DODD: Well, what we've offered already, in fact, and that is, of course, we ought to be saying here that when the price of a barrel of oil gets beyond $40 a barrel, where there's plenty of profit here, that those dollars ought to be returned to the consumers in a rebate or plowed back into the research that would allow us to develop alternative technologies.
But the real way to get away from this here, our dependency on that kind of fuel is causing us serious problems across the board. ”

“ The most satisfactory of the liquid fuels for use in internal-combustion engines, are alcohol and the light refined hydro-carbon oils, such as gasoline. These fuels, however, are the most expensive in commercial use, even when consumed with the highest practical efficiency, which, it is thought, has already been attained, as far as present types of engines are concerned.
At present little is known as to how far many of the very cheap distillates and crude petroleums can be used as fuel for internal-combustion engines. It is difficult to use them at all, regardless of efficiency. ”